Center for Special Education

MissionFounded in 1998, the Center for Special Education at Lesley University is dedicated to understanding and promoting the knowledge needed by educators to improve the teaching of learners with disabilities.

VisionWith particular regard for the economically stressed, and for multicultural and multilingual populations, the Center seeks to create collaborations among families, schools, and communities which make it possible for every child, adolescent, and adult to develop and learn.

ValuesThe Center is guided by a philosophy that presumes the competence of all people in their different ways of knowing, learning, and expressing.

GoalsThe goals of the Center are: 1) to disseminate information about current and effective instructional technologies and approaches, and ways to better integrate theory and practice; 2) to conduct research that enhances understanding of what teachers need to know about the development of learners with disabilities, and the processes and contexts that best support their development; and 3) to provide resources for students, teachers, families, school systems, and policymakers on critical questions related to the teaching and learning of individuals with special needs.

Get a Master's Degree with Initial License in Moderate or Severe Disabilities in Just Over a Year

Our Collaborative Internship Program gives students a unique
opportunity to earn a Master's degree and Initial Massachusetts teaching license in
Moderate Disabilities (PreK-8 or 5-12) or Severe Disabilities (all levels) while spending a full academic
year in the classroom. This full-time program operates on a structured
sequence of courses held at both the school site and at the Lesley
University campus in Cambridge.

Participating schools are: Brookline Public Schools, Westwood Public Schools, Carroll School in Lincoln.

Helping Traumatized Children Learn, a 117-page report by the Massachusetts Advocates for Children Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, summarizes the research on how child development is affected by trauma, noting the varied consequences for academic performance as well as social and emotional functioning. This book also identifies the need for school-wide ecological supports (Trauma Sensitive Schools) as the basis for student success.

A second volume, Helping Traumatized Children Learn Volume II, articulates the process for encouraging development of Trauma Sensitive Schools, through the creation of Learning Organizations within schools that follow an effective change process using an inquiry based methodology. A policy agenda calls for
changes in laws and policies to support schools.